Brentwood Liberal Democrat Councillor Karen Chilvers appeared on ITV quiz show The Chase last night.
She took on The Barrister, Sean Wallace in a showdown that was much more tense than I had expected. I had never watched the show before and I found it quite compelling.
The idea of the game is that each contestant answers as many questions as possible in a minute to earn £1000 per correct answer. At the end of the minute, they gamble that amount of money in a play off against The Chaser, any one of four mean characters who appear to know everything. The questions are certainly a great deal more difficult in that section of the show. Contestants are eliminated if the Chaser has more correct answers than they do.
Any contestants remaining at the end take part in the Final Chase – can they answer more questions than The Chaser in two minutes? If the Chaser gets a question wrong, they can get extra points.
Typically this is all dressed up with your usual tea-time quiz show panto.
Karen, pictured here with her dog Louis, was incredibly calm and cool as she answered the quick-fire questions. I was very impressed with her performance. She has written about her experience here.
I’m not going to give the game away, but you can watch Karen’s performance here (or here if you’re in Scotland).
Ironically, there’s a street in Karen’s ward called The Chase.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings